How to Beat the Miami Heat (In Four Virtually Impossible Steps)

Well, that was surprising. On an evening where the most important NBA news threatened to be Phil Jackson joining Twitter and inaugurating his account with the tweet, "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs," the Miami Heat’s epic 27-game win streak ended last night in Chicago. The Bulls were without Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, yet they won going away, 101-97, in a game that wasn’t really as close as the score suggests. The Bulls led the entire game, and when the Heat made a push in the fourth, the Bulls pushed right back. And they pushed hard.

We should recognize here that winning 27 games in a row is a mind-boggling feat. Miami was the favorite to win the NBA title going into last night, and after losing they remain the favorite. Still, Chicago did a few things that nobody else has been able to do since Super Bowl Sunday, when this streak started.

So how can you beat the Miami Heat? A few lessons from last night:

The LeBron Rules -- In order to get his Pistons past Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the late ’80s, Detroit coach Chuck Daly implemented what came to be known as "the Jordan Rules." Daly could describe this system eloquently, with various variables dependent upon game time and floor space, but the Jordan Rules basically broke down three ways:

A. Try to keep Jordan from getting the ball.

B. If Jordan does get the ball, try to make him pass the ball.

C. If he doesn’t pass the ball, foul him really hard.

This strategy worked well enough for the Pistons to win back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990, before Jordan eventually figured out how to conquer it and twist it to his will, as he has done with pretty much everything in his life except for the curveball.

Last night the Bulls seemed to impose something similar on LeBron. He shot 11 free throws, about four more than he usually attempts, but more relevantly, whenever he marauded to the rim, the Bulls hit him, hard. It was all legal, all above-board, but there seemed to be a conscious effort to remind LeBron that if he was going to score, he was going to have to pay a price.

LeBron took the punishment all night with remarkable equanimity, at least for most of the game. With about four minutes to play, LeBron drove to the rim and was fouled by Taj Gibson, among other Bulls, though Gibson’s foul was the most obvious, as he chopped LeBron across his left shoulder, accidentally adjusting LeBron’s headband to a jaunty angle. LeBron went down awkwardly, his leg bent beneath him, and then he stood and stretched left shoulder a few times, as though he were yawning with half his body, to make sure we saw that he was in discomfort. The referees initially ruled this a flagrant foul, but they did this specifically to leave themselves an out: If a foul is called a flagrant foul, the officials can then use video to review it and either increase or downgrade the severity.

In this case they decreased the severity, making it a regular foul. LeBron went to the line and made one of two free throws, and then seconds later he attempted to level Carlos Boozer on a screen. Say this for Boozer: He seemed to absorb the hit pretty well. This time the foul was called flagrant and upheld as such. So as it turned out, the game’s only flagrant foul was called on LeBron James.

Getting physical with LeBron seemed to work well, especially 71 games into the season. (After the game, LeBron noted: "I’m not sitting here crying about anything. I play the game at a high level, I play with a lot of aggression, I understand that some of the plays are on the borderline of a basketball play or not. But sometimes, you know, I don’t know... it’s frustrating.")

But during the Playoffs, with time to rest and travel minimized, this strategy would probably be as taxing to the guys fouling LeBron as it would be on LeBron--there was one play early on where Kirk Hinrich attempted to wrap him up on the break and ended up making LeBron look like JaDaveon Clowney.

Stop The Other Guys -- In the fourth quarter, Miami’s Big 3 combined for 27 points on 10-24 shooting. That’s no small feat, and for the most part, scoring 27 against Chicago in a quarter should be enough to win that quarter, no matter the situation. (The Bulls average 92.9 points per game, 28th in the NBA.) But the other Heat players went 1-11 in the fourth, including a sparkling 1-11 on threes. The Bulls got lucky a few times -- the Heat players missed several open jumpers,

Divide And Conquer -- At the same time, Miami’s defense was porous down the stretch. The Bulls scored 32 points in the fourth, getting scoring from seven different players. Most importantly, their offense was fluid, a mixture of ball and player movement that resulted in 7 assists on 10 field goals. Hero ball? Not so much.

Probably the most curious part of Miami’s strategy in the fourth was using LeBron to defend Kirk Hinrich, which left Dwyane Wade to guard Luol Deng. I suppose LeBron played well against Hinrich--Hinrich went 1-4 and had two shots rejected mightily by LeBron--but Hinrich kept him engaged just enough that he was unable to help elsewhere. Meanwhile, Deng torched Miami for 12 in the fourth, finishing the game with 28 points, while Wade chased him around screens. LeBron has been spectacular as a help defender during the streak, but as Chicago showed, there’s no helping the helper.

Pray -- Finally, it helps to get lucky. Udonis Haslem was in foul trouble all night (he finished with 5 fouls in 10 minutes), and with Miami depleted inside, the Bulls pounded the glass, outrebounding Miami 43-31. If you had to pick a member of Miami’s Big Three to be forced to beat you, you’d probably pick Chris Bosh. Bosh was frequently open, but he shot just 8-17 from the floor and finished with only 7 boards. And how often would you expect Kirk Hinrich to out-muscle Chris Bosh on a 50-50 ball? (Wait, don’t answer that.) Second-year man Jimmy Butler has had his moments for Chicago all season, but he went for 17 points and had a huge dunk over Chris Bosh that energized the arena for the stretch run.

Most of the things I ran through about are hardly novel concepts--surely every coach suggests that their team should, for example, attempt to outrebound the Heat--but the Bulls managed to do all of these things, at the same time, on the same evening. And for the first time since February 3, someone beat the Miami Heat.

Now let’s see someone do this four times out of seven.

_Lang Whitaker is GQ’s NBA blogger as well as the editor-at-large at SLAM Magazine and a regular contributor to NBA TV. Follow him on Twitter @langwhitaker.

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